to change; and also the conception of life, the arts and literature underwent an entire transformation.

No matter what the nature of the ideas may be, whether scientific, artistic, philosophic, or religious, the mechanism of its propagation remains identically the same. With International Peace, it is the same, and must first be adopted, as has been done, by a small number of apostles, the intensity of whose faith and the authority of whose names give great prestige. As soon as these apostles succeed in convincing a small circle of adepts and thus form new apostles, the new idea enters into the domain of discussion, where it first arouses universal opposition, because it necessarily clashes with much that is very old and well established. The apostles who defend it are naturally greatly excited by the opposition, which causes them to defend the new idea with energy and dili

The new idea becomes more and more a subject of discussion, and of course is entirely accepted by the one side and entirely rejected by the other side, with almost as much vehemence. These impassioned debates help the progress of the idea very materially, and it keeps going and going, and the new generations who find it controverted tend to adopt it merely because it is a progressive measure, and because young people, always eager to be independent, find wholesale opposition to old ideas to be the most accessible form of originality.

Consequently, the new idea continues to gain in strength, and finally it does not need any more support, and spreads every where by the mere effect of imitation, acting with contagion, a faculty with which. humans are very heavily endowed. Just as soon as the mechanism of contagion intervenes, the idea enters on the phase which necessarily signifies ultimate success, and it then becomes public opinion, and takes on a penetrating and subtle force, which spreads it progressively among all intellects, creating simultaneously a sort of special receptive atmosphere or a general manner of thinking. Like the fine dust

of the prairie, which penetrates everywhere, it finds its way into the interior of all the conceptions, and all the productions of an epoch, and the idea and its consequences, then form part of that compact stock of hereditary commonplaces loaded on us by education. Thus the idea has triumphed, and has entered the domain of public opinion, where it has nothing to fear.

The Seventeenth Amendment to the United States Constitution is a fine example of the reception accorded an idea by public opinion as I have illustrated above. For seventy years the apostles of the political doctrine that the direct election of United States Senators by the people is best for them, kept hammering away with their arguments, until it was finally adopted as an amendment to the Constitution. The object of most arguments are at first abhorred, finally endured, and eventually embraced.

The idea of International Peace like the Seventeenth Amendment, has practically run its prescribed course for adoption. It has reached the point where progress is rapid. Of the various ideas which guide a civilization, some rest confined with the upper grades of the nation, while others go deep down among the population. As a rule they arrive there much deformed, but, when they do arrive there, the power they exert over primitive minds incapable of much reasoning is wonderfully large. Under such conditions the idea represents something that is practically invincible, and its efforts are hurled forward with violence analagous to a stream that has overflown its banks. There are always hundreds of thousands of men in a nation of the larger sort who are ready to risk their lives to defend an idea as soon as this idea has actually convinced or subjugated them.

International Peace has been talked and discussed for so many years, that the time is now ripe for it to be inaugurated as part of the international law of the world.

YOUR

дви

O

BY

UITE recently our country was merely a pupil at the Hague, a student of the Science of Peace. In her studies she manifested a little more zest, and evidently progressed much more rapidly than her companions. For, when a very significant test came from Mexico, she passed the examination gloriously. Her answer to the great Mexican question was implicitly this: no matter how great a grievance may be, it is less a grievance than war, since war includes all grievances. The world admired her wisdom. The Hague smiled approval.

True, to preserve peace with Mexico, we had to leave Mexico at war with herself. The malodorous moral vapors from that civil seethe are still filling our country with nausea. But if we allow our laudable and just indignation to be tempered with reflection, we shall have to confess that war would only enrage our illiterate neighbors to even grosser excesses; at best, could finally quell their restlessness for only a time; at worst, would create for us more difficulties than it would solve. Besides, to add to Mexico's crimes the ravages of our weapons would be to increase the world's woes; to increase them at a time when all hell seems to be conspiring against the human race. Grievances, better than anything else, bear postponement. They are proved by the test of time. If real, they endure.

Mexico is now in the throes of libertybirth. She is painfully working out her destiny, just as we and other nations have done before her. She has a right to be let alone. There will be time enough for us to settle with her when she has settled with herself. There is honor for us in the waiting. In the interim, humanity, the universal law, demands that we do our diplomatic and charitable utmost to win

the innocent sufferers in Mexico from torment.

Our country's attitude toward Mexico. has won for her a unique distinction. From pupil, she has become teacher of peace. Europe's agonized eyes are now appealingly fixed on her. Naturally, such a sudden and unexpected elevation has somewhat dazed her. She doubts that her voice will be heard, or, if heard, be heeded, in the unearthly clangor of arms. She is apprehensive that stray shots from the war-zone may ricochet across the Atlantic and inflict wounds upon her which it would be dishonor not to redress. This nervousness, forsooth, is a kind of stage-fright. She is much like a player, possessed of all such requisites as talent, memory, and trappings, but timorous of throat difficulties and gallery missiles at the première.

We are a people of energy, hence of nerves, hence of imagination, hence of fears. But let us compose ourselves. Poor performers are deservedly criticized. The world is our audience; it is expecting great things; shall we give it disappointment? No, of course not! But are we not making a bad début?

But

Comes a murmur from all sides the regular army and the navy should be augmented. Those who dare say nay are forthwith stigmatized as madmen. At the outbreak of the European War, however, armaments were acknowledged by everyone as the cause of the conflict. now it seems that belligerency has so heated our blood that cool reason has been boiled out of our heads. Facts, nevertheless, remain; even though our opinions and sentiments have changed. Whether we at present care to consider it or not, it is a sorry truth that Europe's armies have rendered the Hague helpless and inaugurated an era of horrors.

And now, must we, the only nation influential enough to champion Peace, genuflect to Mars?

Notwithstanding the lively jeers of militaristic scribes, the statement stands that the possession of weapons is the strongest stimulus to their use. Germany armed to the teeth, felt too puissant for Peace; too easily she found a cause for war: the world weeps. Experience is the queen of instructors; but do her pupils always learn? Mammoth calamities have testified, and are at this moment witnessing, that martial means to avert trouble draw down on men their greatest sorrows. They have caused History to be couched with a sword-point and blood. The nations across the sea are now madly struggling for life, although up to a few months ago, they were cheerfully and blindly making ready for death,-creating the instruments with which to slay one another. Are we, who should be wise with a firm realization of their lack of wisdom, about to be false to our national policy and follow the unhappiest of examples? If the defects of our present national defence speak to foreign countries of our weakness, an increase of militia would indicate military design. A reputation for bellicoseness, fully as much as for impotence, invites complications. Martial rivalry, suspicions, and jealousies are the recipe for disaster.

With military combustibles in perfect order, a tiny spark from Servia set Europe on fire. If we similarly prepare for disaster, the slightest of grievances will serve to prepare disaster for us. Indeed, even with our present limited army, many of us wax perkily indignant, defiant, and menaceful over sundry occurrences. Some hotly mumble that the Tennessee incident is not yet settled; though, in truth, it is difficult, in cool consideration, to establish any reason for continued heat. Others with flashing eye, grumble over the alleged maltreatment of Americans in the belligerent countries; though all United States citizens were bidden home at the very beginning of the contest, and were given every reasonable means of conveyance. Which facts assuredly stamp the

troubles of those who have deliberately remained abroad as personal and not national affairs. The moral is this: if, without an adequate national weapon of defence, we are inclined to take such haughty umbrage upon such inferior provocation, how much greater and dangerous will be our resentments, when we are animated with the confidence inspired by an ample military array!

In these turbulent days, when some excuse for war is encountered at almost every turn, the consciousness of unpreparedness is our greatest defense. Our weakness is our salvation. If we clothe ourselves with strength, there is little doubt that certain noisy newspapers which, despite the President's express wishes, are even now doing their subtle best to stir up mischief, will goad us on to a proof of that strength. God only knows where we shall be, if we forge for ourselves the grim means to get there! And, if the war-god finds homage in the United States, the only remaining powerful luminary of Peace will have set. The world will be enveloped with affliction. Chaos will reign.

But why do we fear the possible advent

of turmoil? It is quite improbable. Shackled with a thousand problems and interests of her own, Europe could not harm us, even if she would. Far from desiring to hurt us, however, she seeks to be helped by us. Ours is a sacred trust. Peace and plenty are our charge. While the terrible conflict rages, we can mitigate. its ravages. When it closes, we shall have the moral and material wherewith to revive and cure a maimed and bleeding continent. Shall we be such traitors to humanity as to adopt measures which may imperil that trust?

Perchance we sniff complications with Japan. Yet we have received diplomatic assurances from that quarter which should leave us reasonably easy. But if our sense of prudence is so strong that we must provide for emergencies, let us cast about for means which do not spell danger We shall not have to look far, nor ponder much. For securing our country agains? future catastrophe, there is an obvious

method, much cheaper, more effective, and less jeopardous than army-building. It is simply a promotion of that principle whose presence is really the cause of Germany's greatness and whose decay is the most ominous of England's menaces: national spirit. Let us not posit the safety of our country in the hands of 120,000 paid soldiers. As patriots, each and every one of us should keep the precious spirit of the nation aglow in his own breast. Then, if disaster threatens, we shall meet it in a phalanx against which it can but patter in vain. Millions, armed with disinterested love of country, are much more mighty than thousands, equipped with perfunctory training, brand new guns, and nicely burnished swords. For, the security of our land is in ourselves, not in our army. When the Spanish-American War burst upon us, we were, so far as militia goes, unprepared, but, in point of national spirit, we were practically a unit. Like magic, unity made soldiery appear. The call for volunteers was answered by many

If

more than could be accommodated. we are now as united as we were then, why are we fearfully clutching about for new defences? If we are not, let us earnestly endeavor to be. The condition of England is a darkly significant example to spur us on. In her hour of greatest trial, those on whom she chiefly relies for sustenance, her seamen, have leapt at her throat, demanding what she is ill able to give. They fervidly argue that their increased risks should and must be renumerated with increased salaries. They prefer a fat pay-roll to their country's welfare. Much will England's vast navy and great army avail her, if her children thus fall away from her best interest and from each other. Heaven forbid that any similar division should obtain in America during time of public distress! To prepare against it, is by far more prudent, serviceable, and necessary, than to rear armies.

In fine, let us not insult the Peace with which our land is blessed, by presenting it with arms!

T

BY

HE war state stands before us to-day proud and unafraid. It is however self-conscious. To use the figures and similes of Carlisle in his "Characteristics" like Doctor Kitchener, it has a good system. It is not like the Indian war state that knew no other kind of state and therefore didn't realize that it had a system nor was it like Countryman and "had no system." The war state to-day has a system and it glories in it. Its rules are God's laws and man's vices and crimes are its virtues. It knows its purposes which it says are divine.

Those purposes are first to secure order within, second to make war without. It might almost say that its purpose is to

make war without. In no sense of the word does it make war without so that it can keep order within. Its purpose therefore is to make war for it keeps order within so it can better make war without. It might almost say, in fact, it does say that if it did not make war it would have no right to exist. If it doesn't make war better than another it has no right to exist. It makes war that it may grow, that it may develop, that it may progress, that it may enlarge itself. It ceases from war for the time being only that it may prepare to make war again. War is its health, its vocation. Its provisional peace is its novitiate, its apprenticeship, its years of training. Should it cease to grow and enlarge itself, it would

thereby cease to be healthy and true to its main purpose.

An axiom with many people is that the truth or falsity of many if not all contentions can be found by magnifying them or trying to make them universal. If the contention of the world state is valid this axiom would seem to have found its Waterloo, for it is obvious that if the perfect war state is ever achieved it must constantly grow, it must extend its boundaries continuously. When the war state shall have reached its zenith it will fall into the inevitable decay and degeneration that comes with peace, unless it should divide the World state up into tiny and imperfect war states and begin over again the centuries which were spent in warfare, to see from which centre of the globe the new war state shall spread itself. For it is apparent that since war is necessary, a world of peace would almost be worse than no world at all.

If wars cannot come with the inevitableness with which astute ministers try to clothe them they must be consciously and openly caused merely for the sake of having war.

It may be said and it indeed often is that such a conclusion is impossible, that no constantly growing war state can evolve. War's spokesmen say that power too widespread places the beneficent uses of conflict beyond the reach of the majority of such a state and malign peace causes inner decay. Eternal bloodshed it would appear is the price of national health. And several hostile war states must forever rock progress in its crimson cradle.

This presents to us the other horn of the logical dilemma. All states owe it to themselves and to the world to become thoroughly militarized. Hatred and rivalry must be constantly cherished. Socialism's dream of dream of an international brotherhood that has beguiled the hearts of many who fear most of its other principles is indeed only a dream to be dispelled when the State's real function is exercised.

Iron, hinting its own scarcity, must be primarily used for Busy Berthas, sub

marines and breast piercers. Motor trucks which it was hoped were to be the disseminators of food and strength are to become the swift germs of international disease.

Much of the ever-growing spring of inventive geniuses must be turned from its natural channel of construction to flow through the ways of death and destruction. The works we glory in in times of peace must become the enemies of life. Ships that float upon the bosom of the air deal their horrible and flaming shafts. The dove-like aeroplane becomes the eye of the army dragon.

War states shall build this commerce but to destroy it as children knock down their toy houses. Philanthropists shall attempt to soften and heal the sore spots of society but to see the nations' statesmen tear and rend the living flesh, leaving ulcers that cannot close for years.

The war state of course has satisfactory reasons for making war for growth and development. It must make war to spread its civilization and destroy other civilizations. There could be no concert or symphony of civilizations properly speaking. Civilizations serve their purposes only as they die and pass away. The myriads of philanthropists, social workers, statesmen and jurists in various states that have not received the gospel of war are not building for all time. They are building primarily to render more glorious the victory of the war state. Artists that create, architects that build are only making structures whose rôle in man's history is to be noble ruins.

Physicians and scientists shall study man's body, make warfare upon his unseen enemies, plan and plot the life of health, spend years in study and research, that they may save a few from the plagues of typhoid, of pneumonia, consumption and the other afflictions of man's body only to see man's latest death dealing toy destroy in seconds the healthful tissues it has taken years to build. They shall see their systems of sanitation and hygiene fall like a phantom castle in the air. Disorder, rapine and lust shall spread more disease than health boards.